Jon Stewart Describes ‘Super Weird’ Experience of Returning to ‘Daily Show’

“What was it like to be back in the (Daily Show) seat the first time?” Tom Segura asked Jon Stewart this week on the 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast. 

“Super weird,” Stewart responded.

“Imagine it was a flash forward,” Stewart told Segura. “Have you ever seen those memes where a group of friends will take a picture, and then they’ll get together again 30 years later and take the exact same picture? So I’d been gone for like nine years. A lot of the people that I worked with are still there. So it really was old home week. I love those guys, and we have a great time together. We’re having total fun banging out the script. I’m getting real excited. Fucking put the suit on, put the makeup on, sat down in the desk thing, the camera comes up, I look in the monitor. And I was just like, ‘Oh, that’s that picture.’”

“But 10 years later,” Stewart grimaced, “which is jarring.” 

Stewart blamed his unsettling visage on natural processes like erosion and dehydration. “I was doing an interview about the Apple show, and they said in the interview, ‘Has time passed you by? And I go, ‘Yeah, I think that’s time's job, isn’t it?’” he explained. “Isn’t that what time does? It passes us by. And these younger people with tauter skin, they rise up.”

Speaking of younger people, Segura wondered how all those young Daily Show comics felt about Stewart re-entering the picture. “On your first day back in the room, do you have to put people at ease?” Segura asked. “I imagine they’d be like, ‘Oh, shit.’”

Stewart replied that putting people at ease was his natural inclination, and that reentering the fold was a positive vibe, at least for him. “It’s been nine years and a pandemic and I’m pretty self-isolating. So being in a room with a bunch of smart, funny people where you can just fuck around, it’s exciting.” 

In some ways, Stewart’s return was “just a reboot” of the direction the show had been going, with several people getting a turn behind the big desk. “They got all these really talented correspondents and now they’re getting a chance to host.”

Will someone take the full-time reins again someday? 

“I think ultimately, yeah,” said Stewart. “But in the moment, it’s just about getting through this election year.” 

Segura is pretty sure he won’t be on the list for that full-time gig, mainly because he wouldn’t be any good at it. Other comics, he said, are made for a Daily Show type of job. “I can name 10 people who could do that well,” he promised. 

“Well, give me a list,” Stewart replied. “I don’t how much longer I can bang out this one night a week. It’s killing me.”